New Daggerheart Kickstarter Announced, Chris Perkins, Jeremy Crawford's Plans Revealed

Daggerheart has ambitious plans for the upcoming months, with several major partnerships announced and a new Kickstarter planned for later this year. Today, Darrington Press announced that it would be Kickstarting Class Packs for Daggerheart, a class-based product that contains everything you need to play a specific class. The 76-card packs contain ancestry cards, community cards, subclass cards, and all cards from each of a class's two domains. Also included for Kickstarter backers is a digital PDF of the Daggerheart Core Rulebook.

Also announced were several new collaborations and campaign expansions from the game. A campaign frame focused of romantasy will be released in 2026, focused on the Exandria in-world book Tusk Love. Also announced were collaborations with Legends of Avantris, Dungeons and Daddies, and Bonus Action, all of whom will produce Actual Plays using Daggerheart as a game system.

Darrington Press also announced that Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, and Twogether Studios are all working on new campaign products for the game. Crawford is leading the design of a "devilishly scary" campaign setting (which will be fully fleshed out unlike a campaign frame), while Perkins is building a series of adventures that will span multiple campaign frames and connect into a larger arc. Details about Keith Baker and Jenn Ellis's world was not revealed, but it would feature new player options as part of the "brand-new world."

 

[BRayne]

They did mention at the announcement panel that they didn't want to use kickstarter but growing pains and logistics issues pushed them into it.

 

[Argyle King]

This is smart buisness. Make things for players to buy.

Kinda makes sense.
During D&D 3rd Edition, books upon books of feats and prestige classes were sold. People (including myself) bought them.

I could see Daggerheart doing something similar with class packs. Assuming quality control to keep power creep in check and allow a GM to be confident in allowing things that players being to the table, selling to the entire group instead of just the GM makes sense.

Also, given the cards and whatnot, I could also see a future that includes "special editions" with alternative artwork; foil editions; and crossovers with other IP ("hey! Now you can play as...).

 

[Vael]

R

Also, given the cards and whatnot, I could also see a future that includes "special editions" with alternative artwork; foil editions; and crossovers with other IP ("hey! Now you can play as...).

I'm already a little jealous of the Gen Con alt art cards. Darnit, I already have MTG draining my wallet for shiny cardboard, Daggerheart wasn't supposed to do that!

 

[DocRoscoe]

Kinda makes sense.
During D&D 3rd Edition, books upon books of feats and prestige classes were sold. People (including myself) bought them.

I could see Daggerheart doing something similar with class packs. Assuming quality control to keep power creep in check and allow a GM to be confident in allowing things that players being to the table, selling to the entire group instead of just the GM makes sense.

Also, given the cards and whatnot, I could also see a future that includes "special editions" with alternative artwork; foil editions; and crossovers with other IP ("hey! Now you can play as...).

Don't forget, too, that there may be classes coming that do not use one of the domains included in the core pack. The Necromancer is already in playtest on The Void, and it uses a new domain. Class Packs will be an easy way for those with the core set of cards to "keep up" in a reasonable way.

...unless, of course, they release a whole book of new classes that also comes with a new box of cards to support all the new domains.

 

[overgeeked]

Don't forget, too, that there may be classes coming that do not use one of the domains included in the core pack. The Necromancer is already in playtest on The Void, and it uses a new domain. Class Packs will be an easy way for those with the core set of cards to "keep up" in a reasonable way.

...unless, of course, they release a whole book of new classes that also comes with a new box of cards to support all the new domains.

Yeah. That's one way I can see this going sideways and turning good game design into a cash grab. When I initially heard there would be cards I was incredibly leery of the whole thing. I think they did a great job of integrating the cards and not making it a cash grab. In future, I hope they do something like a core set 2 with a big book of more classes, subclasses, domains, ancestries, communities, monsters, environments, etc along with a box of all the cards like this set. Doing it in bits and pieces or selling the books separately from the cards, i.e. forcing you to buy the same thing twice, would be an immediate crossing the line and me walking away moment.

 

[DocRoscoe]

Yeah. That's one way I can see this going sideways and turning good game design into a cash grab. When I initially heard there would be cards I was incredibly leery of the whole thing. I think they did a great job of integrating the cards and not making it a cash grab. In future, I hope they do something like a core set 2 with a big book of more classes, subclasses, domains, ancestries, communities, monsters, environments, etc along with a box of all the cards like this set. Doing it in bits and pieces or selling the books separately from the cards, i.e. forcing you to buy the same thing twice, would be an immediate crossing the line and me walking away moment.

I can see a second "Player Core" book being released in a set like the current, with all the new cards in a box, but I think it will be a while before we see that. I think they'll want to focus on getting the current demand filled first.

I'm even okay with class packs of new classes being released before a new core book set, as long as they don't just roll up the already-released new classes with one new, iconic, exclusive class that you can only get if you buy the set. That's the point where I think it becomes a cash-grab.

All speculation aside, however, I really do think this is just a way to get something in stores for players to buy, especially before the holidays. I could be wrong, but I believe it's a lot easier and faster to get high-quality cards printed (in the US in particular) than it is a whole book, and this is one way to keep product on the shelf and interest up.

EDIT: also, the cards aren't really needed to play the game, it just makes it a little easier. They can also ameliorate the bad look by keeping PDFs of the cards available for free download.

 

[Argyle King]

If there is ever a Daggerheart Munchkin set, you could use the same cards for two different games.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Don't forget, too, that there may be classes coming that do not use one of the domains included in the core pack. The Necromancer is already in playtest on The Void, and it uses a new domain. Class Packs will be an easy way for those with the core set of cards to "keep up" in a reasonable way.

...unless, of course, they release a whole book of new classes that also comes with a new box of cards to support all the new domains.

I think you mean the Witch and the Warlock, which both use a new Dread domain. There's no Necromancer up on The Void that I can see. I hope there will be one day.

Matt Mercer also mentioned he'd been working on a Bloodhunter class with a Blood domain. Hopefully that domain is broad and genuinely blood-themed (which Bloodhunters kind of weren't in 5E) so could also be used for other classes rather than being hyper specific to Bloodhunter.

 

[Rossiland]

Always excited for Chris Perkins’s work.

Crawford has never been a narrative/story guy, so interesting to see him assigned a campaign book.

Crawford was one of the leading designers of Eberron: Rising From the Last War

 

[DocRoscoe]

I think you mean the Witch and the Warlock, which both use a new Dread domain. There's no Necromancer up on The Void that I can see. I hope there will be one day.

Matt Mercer also mentioned he'd been working on a Bloodhunter class with a Blood domain. Hopefully that domain is broad and genuinely blood-themed (which Bloodhunters kind of weren't in 5E) so could also be used for other classes rather than being hyper specific to Bloodhunter.

Yup, my mistake. Should've checked before I typed.